As real as the pain
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: When Ciel wasn't here, he would feel the most scared. Darkfic, please heed to the warnings inside.


Author's Note: For the third time in a Kuroshitsuji fic, this story was directly inspired by a nightmare I had - a pretty dreadful one I, ironically, immediately thought 'damn this is aesthetically interesting, how would I be able to apply this concept to a story, original or fanfiction?' Coincidencially, I seem to have entered the nightmare season again, and coincidencially real life has been having those worst-than-nightmares flares to it. I've been trying different methods to be able to rest at night. And here we are.

 **Warnings:** This is a darkfic in its essence. It may be in a more or less symbolic/implied manner -or not- but this deals with night terrors, post traumatic stress disorder, violence and sexual abuse.

 **Disclaimer:** Don't own Kuroshitsuji or characters. I do own my nightmare and my current mindset though.

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When Ciel wasn't here, he would feel the most scared.

This time around, he was alone in a dark place. He was too afraid to open his eyes, but somehow he knew where he was. As if he could see himself from above, looking down on his cramped form in the vast space. It was a strange, wide room that made him feel small and caged. Not a church; not the hallway of his home. Some cross in-between.

 _Where's Ciel?_

There was a candle flickering nearby, just out of reach. The flame casted shadows over the walls, licking the frames of paintings that seemed to hang in the air, unbounded and unpinned. The unfocused blurred people in the paintings didn't wear masks, but somehow he still felt watched, watched from above, looked down in a cramped naked bundle on the floor.

The floor was wet. Some thing moved in it sometimes. It tickled his leg. When it wormed against the branding on his back, he smothered down a cry.

He was cold. Tiny goosebumps riddled his body like needles being shoved into him.

 _Help me._

He held himself close, crambled in a ball for protection, for warmth. Some of the things in the floor got unintentionally squashed under him. His palm tucked over his chest, all he could feel instead was the pounding heartbeat grounding him each time more to the here, the now, the pain, the terror. His heart kept banging against the bones of his ribcage, pushing to come out, hurting him more than the needles.

 _Where's Ciel?_

His ears deafened under the bumping and thumping of blood rushing to his head, to the soft groveling on the floor. Soft sounds started to creep, different ones, slowly. Still unclear, he knew they were voices looming through the wide room.

So they were coming.

All he wanted was to disappear, but just as his heart kept hurting him, his body kept betraying him with pins and needles goosebumps, he started to bleed. The stench was heavy and immediate. He heard the buzzing ruffle of wings as the moths approached, much more trained and excelled at tracking it. It sparked a jolt down his body, his muscles cramping and hurting him in antecipation, once again his body turning against him.

 _Where's Ciel?!_

The metallic taste made him cough in the blood that slipped to his throat as it ran out of his nose, soaking the side of his face and the worming floor. He tried to stanch it in a hurry, but the blood didn't care to stop. His cupped hand couldn't hold the trails of red, so he pinched his nose instead and closed his eyes shut. Maybe he could disappear like this. Make the blood stop, make the breathing stop.

A soft, hairy and tacky leg touched his shoulder before the other five properly landed over him. Its touch was a thicker, horrible needle shoved into tenre flesh and all the air he tried to keep in his lungs was pushed out of him. The candle's shaky light crumbled under the flutter, soon to be put out.

He rolled upwards, staring at the ceiling he couldn't actually see, the looming haunting paintings of faceless people in and out of the light before it finally disappeared. Now he had nothing else but the creeping, painful grips of the moths landing one by one over him.

He heard something else, something different.

The shadows creeped slightly. He could barely move his head to stare at the darkness, seeing it take form. It was neither a man or a woman. Neither dressed or naked. It didn't have a face, but it was not a faceless painting.

 _Ciel?_

 _\- No._

The monster didn't make a sound in the moving floor. The moths didn't scatter in a fright as the monster moved its hand closer. Perhaps they didn't see it. It cupped his left cheek as a moth fluttered its wings on the right.

 _Have they taken Ciel?_

 _\- You have to be strong._

 _Yes._

The monster shoved two fingers into his mouth.

He chocked, hurting, screaming, burning, lost in a whirlwind of running moths and clashing wings, but as he vomited all the bile and rotten food - all the sickness, all the terror - he felt something different. Off. Finally, off.

 _\- You will feel better._

Maybe the monster hadn't actually spoken - he could not remember or imagine any voice. But he knew the words were true, for some reason. For some reason, he trusted them; he _would_ feel better. He was feeling better, even if coughing, even if burning, he knew some of those awful things inside him were off and out of him.

The monster didn't do anything else. It towered up and disappeared in the darkness. The moths scattered about, confused, lost, if but a moment.

He felt better.

The monster returned sometimes. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe a nightmare. Maybe something else he couldn't name because it didn't - shouldn't - exist. The important thing was it felt real. As real as the pain, as real as the fear. He wasn't scared of _this_. If nothing else but darkness was willing to help him, he would have it.

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 **おわり**

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 **Author's Note:** Whether this happens during captivity or afterwards, whether it's all a nightmare or a subsconcious trauma illusion, or some demonical antecipation/aftermath, it's up to you to interpret.

Once again, thanks so much to Igorrr for creating music that encapsulates nightmares and cleansing like nothing else quite does. I've listened to the album 'Hallelujah' this time around, with special mention to the songs 'Lullaby for a fat jellyfish' and 'Infinite loop'.

Thanks a lot for reading, feedback and corrections to english are encouraged.


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